This invention relates to concrete screeds and in particular to a portable screed which may be mounted on an operator and guided by the operator to smooth freshly-poured concrete prior to curing.
Smoothing and leveling of freshly-poured concrete is done in essentially two manners. First, in a semi-automated manner, concrete screeds such as that described in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,340,351 are used. However, such screeds can be relatively expensive and normally are used for relatively wide expanses of concrete. Second, the typical manual leveling of concrete can be employed where two laborers position themselves on either end of a board and simply smooth the concrete by moving the board along the surface of the fresh concrete. Such a process is awkward, slow and labor-intensive. In addition, because the board is not vibrated, voids can occur in the concrete, leading to weakened areas subject to later cracking or spalling. U.S. Pat. No. 4,359,296 discloses a vibrator for such screed boards, thus providing a means to vibrate the screed board, but still requiring two laborers, one on either end of the screed board, in order to smooth the fresh concrete.